NEWS IN BRIEF

News In Brief

Tourists familiar with the ups and downs of gambling will soon be able to experience the real thing high above the Nevada desert.

The company that is giving physicist Stephen Hawking his first experience with weightlessness in April has decided to set up a base in Las Vegas and take paying customers on the ultimate thrill ride.

Zero Gravity Corp. will pipe in music and add a post-flight champagne party to its offering for $3,675 including tax. It also flies out of Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The company has taken 2,500 passengers on about 100 missions since it was approved by the Federal Aviation Administration in 2004 during its beta-testing period.

The company takes a modified Boeing 727 to 32,000 feet at a sharp angle and then plunges 8,000 feet so passengers can experience 25-second snippets of zero gravity during the descent. As the plane climbs, passengers experience 25 seconds of being pushed down hard, as they feel 1.8 times the normal pull of the Earth. This is repeated 15 times.

The first commercial flight from McCarran International Airport is set for April 21.

For more details, see www.gozerog.com.

Historic Midwest towns

The National Trust for Historic Preservation's 2007 list of a "Dozen Distinctive Destinations" ranges from the town (Charlottesville, Va.) where Monticello is located to Hillsborough, N.C., cited in part as the home of a 1949 NASCAR speedway.

-Woodstock, Ill., a village known for its town square, historic district, Mozart festival and "a Victorian Christmas right out of Dickens."

For details, visit www.nationaltrust.org.

Eating Branson

More than 30 new eateries opened in Branson, Mo., last year, but it hasn't hurt business at existing restaurants.

City records show the addition of 34 restaurants, kiosks and concession stands last year will bring the total number of eating choices in Branson to 444, including some that plan to open this year.

Many of the new restaurants are in Branson Landing, a $420 million lakefront center that opened on the city's east side last year, away from the Missouri Highway 76 strip where older restaurants, theaters and attractions are.

While some owners of older restaurants worried that the Branson Landing would hurt their business, the new entertainment area has brought in enough new visitors to offset any drop in business, some restaurant owners said.